Venus was already up, steadfast in the sky. Unlike the other heavenly bodies that had set with the moon, there was no unsteady flickering, no distracting twinkling. She was constant, unwavering, enchanting and all alone.
Something hard and heavy thumped behind his ribs, and not for the first time in the past twelve hours. In fact, the thumping and heaviness had come over him the moment Rosalind had left him standing in this exact place.
The hours had passed. He and his family had retired to the library once all the guests had gone, and he had told them all about Quinn's heart attacks and stubborn refusal to seek treatment, and together they had fought, reconciled, laughed and cried-and he'd come to realise that he'd never in his life been really alone.
But Rosalind had-solitary in her work, isolated in her home, alone even in her family. And it didn't matter any more that she might have done everything in her power to keep at arm's length those things that could provide her the same easy comfort he'd enjoyed; he finally understood the reason.
Loving something, then losing it, hurt like hell.
Was she out there hurting right now? Hurting and alone, because of him? Because he'd been too stubborn, too scrupulous, too disenchanted to take on the mess that came with the good in any real relationship?
A good man would suck up his pride, put himself in the unpleasant position at being rejected twice in twenty-four hours and do what he had to do to to make sure the person he cared about knew she would never have to be alone again.
He glanced at his watch. The hour was nearly polite enough. Home, a shower, a change of clothes; he pushed himself upright, stretched his tight arms over his head then felt in his pocket for his car keys.
If she slammed the door in his face afterwards, he'd never darken her door again. If her eyes confirmed how deeply he believed she cared, if she opened the door wide and let him in …
The rush of his next thought was stripped from him as a hard hand slapped down upon his shoulder. Dylan sidled in beside him, dressed much the same way as Cameron since none of them had yet been to sleep.
'So this is where you've been hiding since the big brouhaha?' Dylan said.
Cameron slapped a hand around his brother's shoulder and turned them back inside. 'You know as well as I do there are far better and darker places to hide in this monstrosity than on an open balcony.'
Dylan grinned. 'I'm thinking right about now Dad would pay good money to know just one.'
They meandered through the upper level, gravitating towards the kitchen as they had a thousand times before. It didn't feel like he'd spent years away from this place. It just felt like home.
And there was one person he had to thank for showing him the way back. He glanced at his watch again, restlessness beginning to take hold.
Dylan held open the swinging door of the massive white-and-wood kitchen, but not quite so far that Cameron could slip through.
His dress shoes came to a squeaking halt, and he looked up at his brother in time for Dylan to say, 'Thanks, mate.'
'For what?'
'For opening our eyes. For not letting the old man twist your arm. For giving us all the chance to remind him that he was the one who always told us to put family first, and it's about time he remembered that. It's tense in there right now, but once everyone calms down they'll realise the air in this place has never seemed so clear.'
Dylan let the door swing closed to give him a hug. Cameron hugged back, wondering how the hell he'd forsaken this all these years. Not for one more day would he forsake his own happiness for the sake of some cold, loveless principle.
When Dylan let him go and headed into the kitchen, Cameron looked to his watch again. It was nearly seven. She was a morning bird; she'd be up.
Not for one more day? He wasn't going to deny himself the chance at happiness another minute.
Dylan grabbed a slice of birthday cake and a glass of milk from the fridge. 'You staying for breakfast?'
Cameron shook his head, his mind a million miles away from there already. 'Not this time.'
'Damn it. I was itching to find out what new bombshell you might drop over waffles-Brendan's gay? Mum voted Labour? Meg's adopted, as she always hoped? No? Fine; so what are your plans for this fine day? Tell me they involve that fabulous young thing who accompanied you here last night and I might forgive you.'
Cameron took a swipe of icing. 'I have high hopes.'
Dylan paused. Then said, 'How high, exactly?'
'Ridiculously, I'm afraid.'
'Do tell.'
'She accused me lately of having no staying power, and I am of a mind to prove her wrong.'
'Wow. Don't tell me you're in need of the little blue pills yet? You're younger than me.'
Cameron elbowed his brother neatly in the solar plexus and was rewarded with a satisfying, 'Oomph!'
He slipped the icing into his mouth, and the sweetness exploded on his tongue. Then he said, 'Rosalind knew I was making excuses. What I didn't realise was that with her I didn't need to.'
'She's figured you out, then?'
Cameron breathed in deep through his nose. Then he pushed away from the island to head to the door leading outside, to his car, to her. 'That she has.'
'Excellent,' Dylan said with a chummy grin. 'It seems I may have a bombshell to drop over breakfast after all.'
Rosie sat on Adele's couch, staring unseeingly at the shifting yellow stripes on the wall left by the early-morning sun spilling through the wooden blinds behind her. Her feet were tucked beneath her, her legs covered in the blanket beneath which she'd slept-kind of. A bit. Not really.
In fact she'd been awake pretty much all night having deep and meaningful conversations with herself across a range of matters that had all led back to the one crucial fact: that she had gone and done the most stupid thing she could ever do and fallen for Cameron Kelly.
About three minutes after the cab had pulled out of the Kelly Manor driveway, the words, 'Turn this cab around right now!' had crowded her throat. Shouldn't she at least have allowed herself the chance to be loved back?
A deep breath, a sharp tug of the hair at the back of her neck and an extra five kilometres distance, and she'd been certain that she'd been on the verge of unashamedly setting herself up for heartache again, and again, and again …
Repeat one-hundred times, and that had been her night.
Adele came into the lounge with a tray of coffee, cake, chocolate, salt-and-vinegar chips, and lollies in the shape of milk bottles.
'How you doing, snook?' Adele asked, pouring her a strong cup of coffee.
'Better.' She uncurled her legs before they got stuck that way, and let her toes scrunch into the coarse, woven rug at her feet.
Adele's eyebrows rose. 'All better?'
Actually she felt like a walking bruise. She wrapped her hands around the hot mug and glanced at Adele over the top. 'Thanks for letting me stay.'
Adele blinked down at her several times before saying, 'Thank me later.'
Then the doorbell rang.
Adele jumped. She glanced at the door, back at Rosie, then back at the door. She said, 'I think I left the iron on. Can you get that?' And then shot from the room.
The doorbell rang again.
Rosie dragged herself from the couch, ran fingers through her thicket of hair, rubbed her hands hard over her face to make sure all the bits were where they were meant to be and trudged to the door in her borrowed pyjama bottoms, T-shirt and bare feet. The delivery guy would just have to suck it up and pretend she didn't look like a one-woman freak show.
She hauled open the door and found herself face to face with a crumpled khaki shirt with rolled up sleeves, revealing the greatest pair of forearms God had ever created. And on the end of them …
'Cameron!'
'Hi,' he said.
She swallowed. It seemed his name was the most she could hope to say.
His hand reached up to cup the doorframe, as though she might be about to slam the door in his face-like he couldn't see that her irrational heart was trying its best to leap from her chest and into his beautiful arms.
'Can I … ?' He cleared his throat. 'Rosie, can I come in?'
Rosie … Had he just called her Rosie?
She curled her toes into the hard wood and, no matter how hard she tried to resist, all the stagnant, decided places inside her began to flutter back to life. Which was ridiculous. He was likely there because she'd left something behind, and he was so damned civilised he was returning it by hand.